


and I will be your anchoring line

by MarvelousMenagerie (HiddenOne)



Series: 2019 Tony Stark Bingo [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Compliant, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sad with a Happy Ending, Soul Bond, Tony wields the infinity stones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 04:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17717885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenOne/pseuds/MarvelousMenagerie
Summary: After the defeat of Thanos, Tony is one to wield the infinity stones but the stones don’t have the same power as before. Tony can only save those dusted in the Snap if they have a soul-bond to someone still living.Tony runs into a difficult choice about Bucky Barnes, and he’s not sure that Steve will forgive him.





	and I will be your anchoring line

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tony Stark Bingo, square S1 - Soulbond.
> 
> Ship info :: Background Pepper x Tony, mentions of Happy x Pepper (in a non-cheating manner), mentions of Clint x Laura.
> 
> Many thanks to CinnamonAnenome and Icarus in the winteriron discord who cheer-read this!! <3 <3

“It’s not going to work,” Tony realizes with a sigh. Of course it’s not going to work - when has his life ever been that easy?

“What?” Steve snaps. He’s still bleeding, a gash on his shoulder still leaking blood onto the suit.

Their battle has ended. Thanos is dead. The gauntlet with the infinity stones - and Thanos’ hand still inside it - is on the ground. Everyone who is left circles around it, bleeding and broken but still alive.

“It will work,” Steve presses. “This is what we’ve planned for.”

Thor sighs. “I fear Stark is right. The stones are dull. They will not have the same power that they did before.”

“We haven’t come this far not to try it,” Natasha argues.

“It will work,” Steve repeats.

“Just because you say so?” Tony bites back.

“Enough,” Rhodey commands, settling a hand on Tony’s shoulder. With Rhodey in the War Machine armor, Tony can feel the heavy weight even while he’s in his own armor. Rhodey continues, “We need to play this out and _then_ come up with a new plan.”

“Get a move on, will ya?” Rocket says, kicking at the ground. “I’m tired of all ‘a you. No wonder I don’t do this ‘team’ thing.”

“Patience, sweet rabbit. It will take time to decide who will wield the gauntlet,” Thor says.

In the moment of silence following Thor’s statement, Tony takes a moment to breathe deeply. For the first time in years, Tony feels that time is finally on their side. They’ve defeated Thanos and now have the stones. They don’t have to rush or improvise, they can finally plan while having all the cards in their hands.

“It should be Stark.”

Tony turns with everyone to stare at Nebula, who’d voiced the nomination.

“Uh, what?” Tony responds, blinking at her.

He hadn’t - no, that’s a lie, he’d _thought_ about it. He’d thought about what he could do with the infinity stones. All the problems he could solve, all the mistakes he could fix, all the wrongs he could right. Poverty, the environment, _war_ \- just to name a few. The irony in being called the Merchant of Death and then ending war would be enough by itself, on top of being able to save those who were dusted in the Snap.

Pepper.

Peter.

Fifty percent of the universe’s population.

But no, Tony doesn’t want to wield the gauntlet. Responsibility, accountability - those along with all manner of boundaries and oversight go out the window with the power of the infinity stones. How can he be sure that he won’t be tempted by that power?

“On Titan, Thanos knew you,” Nebula explains. “He knew you by name.”

Now everyone turns to stare at Tony, but Tony doesn’t look away from Nebula. He doesn’t acknowledge Nebula’s claim, but they both know he remembers. Tony will never forget what happened on Titan.

_You are not the only one cursed with knowledge_.

“What does it matter?” Rocket asks, waving a hand in dismissal. “It’s _Thanos_. He’s got to know lots of people.”

“You’re wrong. Thanos doesn’t notice people unless they earn his attention,” Nebula replies.

“Well he didn’t know _me_ ,” Rocket grumbles. “If he only knows important people then he should’a known me.”

“Thanos knew Tony,” Natasha clairifes. She looks thoughtful, then shakes her head. “I’m not sure that should be taken as a compliment.”

“I’m not taking it as one,” Tony inserts.

Steve crosses his arms. “I don’t think we should let Thanos dictate who wields the gauntlet.”

“I agree,” Tony chimes in.

“Then we won’t,” Rhodey says, hand squeezing Tony’s shoulder. “We won so we decide, and so let’s put it to a vote.”

“Does anyone even want to wield the gauntlet? Let’s start there,” Tony says.

Screw what Natasha wrote, what Fury thought, what Steve thinks. Tony can totally be a team player and hand over control when the situation calls for it.

Thor reasons that he can better handle the power of the infinity stones given that he is Asgardian.

Rocket tosses his name into the ring, just for the opportunity.

At Clint’s prompting, Steve steps forward too.

“Yes or no, Tony,” Rhodey prompts.

Tony takes a breath.

_Spare his life, and I will give you the stone_.

Is this part of what Strange had seen, back in those possible futures? Did Strange have to guarantee Tony being spared for this moment? Is Tony supposed to wield the infinity stones?

Tony mentally scoffs at himself. Since when did he start believing in fate?

But since when could he sit back and let others decide the fate of the universe? Natasha and Fury and the Avengers are all right then - he’s not a team player. He’s not going to sit this one out unless he’s voted completely off the island.

“Sure,” Tony says. “Why not?”

Rocket gets zero votes. Even Rocket doesn’t vote for Rocket - Rocket votes for Thor. Thor and Bruce also vote for Thor. Clint, Scott, and Steve vote for Steve. Nebula, Rhodey, and Tony vote for Tony.

Natasha doesn’t cast a vote, and the eyes of the group settle on her as the results of a three-way tie weigh on them.

“Natasha,” Steve prompts.

Natasha’s lips twist. “You know, I never would’ve thought that I’d get to decide the fate of the universe.”

“Technically you’re not,” Tony says before he can stop himself. “You’re deciding on the _decider_ of the fate of the universe. Chop, chop, make your choice.”

“Tony,” Natasha says.

“No rush, we’ve got all the time. We’ll wait,” Tony assures, refusing to be quiet. “Anyone have a drink they wouldn’t mind sharing? I think I could use one.”

“Tony,” Natasha repeats.

Tony’s mouth clicks shut as he realizes that Natasha isn’t telling him to shut up. Natasha is telling everyone her choice.

“Tony? Are you _crazy_?” Clint asks. “Fine, I’ll switch my vote. I vote Thor. Come on, Steve, Scott.”

“Why me?” Tony asks Natasha. It’s all he can think to say.

Clint’s insults don’t even stick anymore, aren’t worth acknowledging. Clint hasn’t been alright since he lost part of his family in the Snap, and everyone but Natasha has taken to ignoring his moods.

Natasha shrugs. “I don’t know what is going to happen. No one does. If going back before Thanos gets the stones doesn’t work, if we can’t bring everyone back for whatever the reason - if anyone is going to figure out how we can go _forward_ from this, I think it’s you.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Tony asks.

Rhodey slaps his shoulder, which still manages to hurt even through the amor. “Knock it off, genius. Save your sass for that thing,” Rhodey says as he gestures to the infinity stones.

“You have my blessing, Tony Stark,” Thor says with a grave nod. “If it can be done, I know you will do it.”

Tony looks to Steve. Steve gives Tony a small, tired grin.

“She said it,” Steve says, nodding at Natasha. “Good luck, Tony.”

“Well, then,” Tony says as he looks down at the gauntlet. He retracts the Iron Man armor from his hands. “I guess gauntlets are kinda my thing now, huh?”

* * *

 

The infinity stones sing when he puts on the gauntlet. Tony feels the rush of the power, the knowledge that he can do _anything_.

Well, not anything. Not everything. Not even go back in time and undo the Snap, not completely.

The power left in the infinity stones is not enough. The Snap had used them and damaged them, and they have not yet recovered. Even the power of the universe is not limitless. Large enough to seem infinite, and yet not.

What beautiful, beautiful math - except the math tells Tony that while he can bring back those lost in the Snap, he can only bring back those lost in the Snap if they have a still living soul-mate.

A soul-mate, a soul-connection, a soul-bond to someone still living. The ultimate matching puzzle with infinite - yet not - combinations, as people usually have multiple soul-connections. People who have changed your life, your soul, forged a bond with you that transcends time and space and death.

Tony is overwhelmed, his mind overflowing with information. It’s not just fifty percent of the Earth’s population, it’s fifty percent of the entire universe along with their soul-connections that are in his brain. If Tony could have FRIDAY help him, he would work out an algorithm and run a few simulations and have the confidence to say that he picked the best combination to get as many people un-dusted as possible.

He doesn’t have that.

He only has his brain.

Tony starts.

He starts with the most important people that he’s lost. First, Pepper. Pepper’s image, a ghostly impression of her, emerges from the crowd in front of him. Pepper and his souls are connected, a metaphysical string lit up in reds and yellows and blues that stretches from Pepper’s chest to his.

Tony knows, the knowledge whispered into his mind from the stones that red represents romance and yellow for friendship and blue for loyalty. The colors run both ways, but before Tony touches the string - before he matches them, guarantees Pepper’s return to the living world through their specific soul-connection - Tony notices an equally bright string stretching out from Pepper.

At the prick of curiosity, the image of Happy stands next to him. The string connects Pepper to Happy. Their string is bright with yellows and blues, and on Happy’s end there are streaks of bright red.

Tony sighs. Ignorance is bliss. He could’ve gone without knowing that because Happy - he wants the best for Happy, and what could possibly be better than Pepper? Happy would be good to Pepper, and she would be excellent to Happy. They would make a good couple. There’s no red light coming from Pepper’s end of the string - not yet, his mind whispers to him - but Tony can’t look away from comparing how bright Happy’s red is compared to the red in Pepper and Tony’s string. The yellows and blues are overtaking the red, especially on Pepper’s end, of her connection to Tony.

Does Tony have the power to change the string colors?

_Yes,_ the stones whisper to him.

But it will cost power. Power that Tony can’t afford to lose, not if he wants to bring everyone back. How many people is Tony willing to sacrifice to brighten the red color in his and Pepper’s bond?

Tony breathes out a shaky breath. He matches Pepper and Happy, touching their string, which solidifies into gold and secures Pepper’s resurrection through the soul-connection.  

Tony moves on. He won’t sacrifice the chance to save someone to secure Pepper’s love. Pepper can make that choice, whatever choice, when she’s alive again.

Peter is easy to match-up with his bright, familial green connection to Aunt May. Clint, Laura, and Natasha secure each of Clint and Laura’s children. Wong has a deep blue connection that saves Dr. Strange. Tony doesn’t choose Queen Ramona’s connection to T’challa, picking Okoye’s deep blue connection instead, so that Tony can use the Queen’s connection to Shuri to be certain of securing both of the royal children.

Tony touches each connection, making them sing gold, before he moves on.

Tony matches and matches and matches. The more he does the easier it gets. He stops seeing the ghostly faces, he stops seeing the colors of the strings and focuses only on the string’s presence.

Some people who are trapped in the soul stone have no connections to those still on the land of the living. Tony hates it, rails in anger, but the stones do not waver. They, _he_ , does not have the power to save everyone. Only a soul-connection, one that Tony must choose, will resurrect someone from the Snap.

It must also be a strong, two-way connection. Anything less will crumble in Tony’s hand when he touches it. Tony tries not to look, not to _know_ the person left to die when this happens, but the stones give him the knowledge regardless. Thirty-seven year old Hadrian Brecken’s old, neglected friendship from high school will not save them. The weak string disintegrates at Tony’s touch. There are no additional soul-bonds to those still living. They will not be resurrected.

Fifty percent lost - if only that made his life easier. If only it really was a perfect half, but of course that’s not how Tony’s life works.

Tony moves on, making matches. He connects and saves more than he loses, though the stones whisper the knowledge of how many he’s lost. Two hundred and twenty-seven. One thousand and seventy. Ten thousand, six hundred and twelve. These are nothing compared to the millions of people that Thanos had Snapped and trapped in the soul stone, but each one is a person who should have lived.

A person who would have lived, if not for Tony’s inability to stop Thanos.

Tony matches. He matches those on Earth. He matches those in space. He matches creatures he never knew existed on planets he never could have imagined. Tony connects them to someone still living, to someone not lost in the Snap.

It takes hours, it takes years, it takes seconds. There is no time where he is. In the end he’ll fix it all in the time it takes him to snap his fingers.

He secures Groot to Rocket with a thick string colored blue and green and yellow. Gamora is resurrected through her connection to Nebula.

Tony almost touches the blue and yellow bond between Steve and Barnes before Tony jerks his hand back.

Steve has multiple connections to those who have been dusted. It’s the one between Steve and Sam that catches Tony’s gaze, because Tony has already matched the rest of Sam’s soul-connections to someone else.

Tony must choose between Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes. He can only secure one of them to Steve.

Tony freezes. He wonders what Steve would do.

Tony knows what he wants to do. Tony wants to pick Sam. Sam is a good man. Sam deserves to be brought back. Tony’s prejudice about his parents’ killer aside, Barnes had already lived a life by 1945 and everything since that hasn’t been a fun time.

Tony will choose Sam.

What will Steve say, what will Steve think, if Tony doesn’t bring Barnes back? For Steve, for Steve’s friendship, Tony wishes he could. But he can’t sacrifice Sam for that, can he?

Barnes has another string. A faint, bloody purple soul-connection that connects Barnes to Natasha, speaking of an aged and twisted romance.

Natasha, who Tony has already secured to Nathaniel Barton.

Tony has done this all wrong. He’s mismatched the team, the entire universe. He’s supposed to be a genius. Natasha chose him specifically to be able to solve this puzzle of bringing everyone back, and Tony has failed.

Steve will never forgive him for this.

Tony will never forgive himself for this, for making the wrong choices just to spite Barnes.

Tony touches the soul-connection between Steve and Sam, turning it gold and securing Sam’s return. Even with the guilt, he refuses to sacrifice Sam Wilson to save the Winter Soldier. No one would, not even Steve. Not with the choice laid out like this, not when Tony can’t cut the wire.

The gold of Sam and Steve’s bond shines enough that Tony blinks at the light. It’s casting a shadow on his vision, except - it’s not a shadow. A black string, hidden in the darkness, a string that connects Barnes and _Tony_. A black soul-connection, a bond of death.

For the first time, Tony wonders if there will be consequences on the other side for which bonds he’s chosen. Did he strengthen the bond between two souls? What happens when they’re back on the side of the living?

Tony’s hand hovers over the string. It might crumble in his hands. Despite the significance of the deaths that connect them, the string itself is weak. At least he’ll be able to say that he tried though, at least Tony will have a defense when Steve looks at him with betrayal.

Except - except Tony knows he can try harder.

He can’t change the color of the strings, not with the remaining power of the infinity stones. This string, though, this is one of Tony’s connections. A soul-bond that belongs to him. Of course he should be able to influence that one, right? At least on his end of it?

Tony needs to be able to tell Steve the truth - that Tony tried everything possible, outside of sacrificing Sam Wilson, to save Barnes. Tony needs to know it himself, that he tried everything.

Tony closes his eyes and thinks of Bucky Barnes. He thinks of the stories that Peggy told him when he was a child. He thinks of the comics that Jarvis snuck Tony to read. He thinks of the man who is best friends with Steve Rogers, then and now. He thinks of a man whose loyalty triumphed over brainwashing. He thinks of a man who stood and faced an alien army, jumping back into the frontlines of another war.

This is the same man who killed his parents. Tony will always be connected to this man with a black bond of death. But that doesn’t have to be it, that doesn’t have to be all. Tony tries to think of Barnes has chosen to do rather than what the Winter Soldier was ordered to do.

Tony opens his eyes. Their connection is still a black string of death, thin and weak. But on Tony’s end, by Tony’s chest, the connection thickens. White threads wrap around the black, winding their way down the bond and getting lost in the middle.

_White - the color of forgiveness_ , the stones whisper to him.

Tony’s hand hovers over the string at his chest, where it’s thickest. He takes a breath and pleads - to the stones, to anyone, to everything - that this will work. Not even the small part of Tony that still hates this man for being the one who killed his mom wants Tony to fail, not here. Not like this.

Tony touches the string.

The soul-connection sings gold under Tony’s hands.


End file.
